


From Stardust to Stars

by xyliane



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Abandonment Issues, Bittersweet, First Kiss, M/M, Near Future, Science Fiction, Spaaaaaaaaace, Space AU (technically it's on earth but shhh), space travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-19
Updated: 2017-05-19
Packaged: 2018-11-02 10:15:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10942407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xyliane/pseuds/xyliane
Summary: Ging chased the unknown, and Gon chases Ging, from the farthest horizons on Earth to the most distant stars in the sky. And Gon loves the chase, the thrill, maybe as much as his dad did. But he also has people he loves just as much, and to get what he wants, he has to leave something behind.





	From Stardust to Stars

#####  _v_.

“I love you, Killua!”

“You _dumbass_ , we’re in school, cut it out!”

It’s long since become common for Gon to greet his best friend with an earnest declaration of love, to the point that school gossip has cycled through “prank” to “dating” and back to “Gon’s just weird like that.” And maybe they’re right. Maybe it is weird that Gon greets his best friend with a flying tackle better suited to a low-grav wrestling match totally incongruous with a loud declaration of love, the words repeated so often and with such regularity that they almost seem to lose all meaning.

It doesn’t stop Gon. Nothing can, not even every variation of spluttered protest from Killua. And if Killua can’t stop it, no one can.

And if Killua doesn’t say it back, well. That’s okay, too.

——

#####  _ix_.

“Anyone ever tell you what’s out there? Outside the Kuiper Belt and the Oort Cloud, I mean, past the end of the Solar System,” Leorio asks, fidgeting with wires and tubes Gon doesn’t entirely understand the purpose of. But Leorio’s the flight doctor, the last person who will check off if it’s safe to take off. Safe to leave.

Not yet, of course. Gon still has classes to finish, diplomas to earn, goodbyes to make. But soon. Soon, Gon will be blasting off beyond the solar system, the youngest member in a team of specialists and explorers, of hunters, all on the chance that if Ging is anywhere, he’ll be out there. It’s the best chance he’s got, according to Kite all those years ago, and Kite is the person who told Gon Ging is out there in the first place, a person that knew Ging well enough to point Gon in the right direction at all.

But what, exactly, he’s supposed to find? Gon shakes his head in a no, and is almost instantly smacked on the forehead. “Stop moving or we have to start from scratch.”

“Sorry, Leorio.”

The doctor huffs, pushing his glasses up his nose. Leorio hadn’t officially been part of the board Gon had interviewed with the summer of his sixteenth birthday, a board Gon hadn’t realized at the time would decide his future, but he’d been its key assistant. In the year since, he’s moved up the food chain, or at least enough that he’s signing off on entire mission personnel as well as moving boxes for the committee’s president. It makes Gon happy. Leorio is kind. Gruff, and occasionally prone to fits of stupid, but kind.

Leorio twists a few more wires, pricking through Gon’s forehead and making his eyes cross. Once it’s done, Gon will be able to directly access the ship’s computer, which will keep an eye on his vitals while they’re launched out of the system. For now, it just itches. Gon’s distracted from the wiring by Leorio asking, “If you don’t know what’s out there, why do you want to go?”

“I’m looking for my dad.” Gon is. There’s something strange and dangerous and wonderful about the worlds beyond the stars, about the potential that there might be something more out there, beyond communication even with Luna Base or Europa’s underwater cities. There are flowers no one has smelled, animals no one’s ever captured, stones no one’s ever turned over. There’s even a chance that Gon’s ship won’t go where Ging is, will be stuck traveling through space to somewhere no one’s ever gone before.

That’s _exciting_. It’s what Gon’s dreamed of. And with the Hunter Association not sponsoring any more expeditions, this is his last chance.

But it doesn’t feel as big as it used to.

Leorio taps a few buttons on his datapad, and Gon feels his ears tingle. “You don’t sound too thrilled about your dad. What do you want to find him for?”

“Because I want to meet him!” Gon says. “I want to know why he wanted to do this, and the best way to know is to do it myself.”

It’s the same words he’s said in every interview, in every conversation, some variation on it to friends and teachers and explorers and hunters. It’s words that Gon, not knowing Ging himself, thinks Ging would say nonetheless. Know what drives someone, what makes them angry, what makes them sing, and poke it with a stick until it happens.

But the words feel hollow now, and Gon’s not sure why.

Leorio frowns again, but not from Gon’s words. “Okay, I think you’re set for today. And Gon?”

He pauses in the middle of hopping down from the gurney. “What is it, Leorio?”

The doctor nervously rubs a hand against the back of his hair, mussing it slightly. “This…is what you want, right? Until you leave, you can back out. You still have a choice. But once you’re gone, there’s no coming back.”

This is what Gon wants. It has to be. What else can he want?

——

#####  _i._

The first person Gon says he loves is, of course, Aunt Mito. She tells him all the time, how much she loves him and how much she wants him to grow up to be his best. She doesn’t always follow through, exhausted from working two jobs and finishing school and dealing with a rambunctious toddler turned rambunctious boy. Sometimes, it feels like she regrets not being able to travel, to see the unending icy seas of Europa or the red dust of Mars. But she says she loves her son, and she means it, so Gon can’t help but tell her right back.

It seems only natural he tell Killua how much he loves him, to pass that feeling of love and belonging and _us_ along to his newly minted best friend. Because Gon loves and Gon wants others to feel loved. And at twelve, the word love still tastes like cotton candy and stretchy toffee, things that don’t last and should be remembered as often as possible.

Killua, for his part, doesn’t seem to understand at all. “You don’t _love_ me,” he insists. “Love’s for…for couples. For parents. For people in _high school_ , like in that movie Zushi likes about Mars.”

“And for friends, and family!” Gon says. “I love Aunt Mito, and you love Alluka. Right?”

Killua frowns, considering. “I guess.”

“So! I can love you too. You are my best friend. Aren’t I yours?”

It’s a good thing they’re alone, math homework and datapads spread over Aunt Mito’s tiny kitchen table, because Killua makes a noise that Gon’s pretty sure he’d hate anyone else to hear. But it’s just them, so it’s okay. Killua says, forced out through his teeth, “You are my best friend. Even if you’re stupid and embarrassing.”

“ _You’re_ stupid!” Gon says back, and flicks an eraser into Killua’s white curls.

It spirals into a mess, papers flying everywhere and erasers decorating the kitchen from stovetop to garbage by the time they’re done, tussling all the way into the living room until they sprawl breathless and laughing on the carpet. Killua still has the eraser in his hair, bright pink and stuck in a knot, and Gon reaches to pluck it out.

That Killua lets him with nothing more than a happy sigh is _everything._

“So?” Gon asks.

“So what?”

“So do you love me?”

Killua makes the same embarrassed noise as earlier, like someone stepping on a rubber chicken. It’s hilarious that Gon can force that noise, just by asking a simple question. “What?!” he manages.

Gon grins, flopping over to meet his best friend’s eyes. “We’re best friends. Do you love me?” he asks again.

A funny red flush spreads across Killua’s pale skin, across his nose and cheeks and ears in a strip of bright color. “I…I guess,” he finally says, speaking not to Gon but to the floor.

“You guess?”

“I guess I love you, too,” Killua says too loudly. His entire face is pinker than the eraser in Gon’s hand, and for a moment it looks like he’s ready to bury his head in the carpet. “What, do we need to kiss or something?”

Gon can’t help but laugh. “That’s for _couples_ , Killua! We’re best friends.”

Killua finally relaxes at that, smile spreading across his cheeks in a cat-like smirk. “Best friends can’t be couples?”

That’s something Gon hasn’t considered before, and he has to pause to think about it. “I guess that could be fun.” He studies Killua’s expression, trying to find something he’s not sure of. “Do you want us to be like that?”

“What? What, _no_!” Killua splutters. “I like us the way we are.”

Gon leans back, letting out a breath he wasn’t aware he was holding. “Me too,” he says, and reaches for Killua’s hand. It fits in his own like a missing puzzle piece. “I love you, Killua.”

“Shut up, dumbass.”

——

#####  _iii_.

_What are your plans after high school?_

It’s the first assignment for their first class of high school. Gon knows his plans—find where Ging went and go after him, wherever he went, even if it’s becoming more likely that he didn’t just leave Earth but the system entirely. But he can’t let Ging know he’s coming, and he definitely can’t let Aunt Mito find out. So until it’s official and he can’t take it back, Gon can’t let anyone know. Not even Killua. Not because Killua would tell, but because Gon’s not sure how to tell it, not until he knows for sure what he’s going to be doing.

Killua’s been done with his paper for hours. “It was easy,” he says when Gon is still gnawing at his fingers, poking absently at his vidscreen and wishing the sentences would appear on their own. “My parents want me taking over the family business. I’m basically doing my dad’s paperwork, anyways.”

Gon looks up from his blank screen. “Is that what you want?” he asks. “We only just started high school.”

“That means I have to start being realistic,” Illumi says through Killua’s mouth. Gon hates hearing that, the wrong cadence and the empty words. “And who knows. Once I’m in charge, maybe I can move the family headquarters. Me and Alluka can settle out in Ios, or maybe near the Charon outlooks. Whatever she wants.”

“That’s still not what _you_ want, Killua.”

“What I want doesn’t matter. It’s better this way.” He rolls onto his back, staring up at the sky.

“But Killua—”

Sharp blue eyes flick at Gon, narrow and angry, and then back to the clouds. “It’s _better_ , Gon. Why do you even care? You’ve always known what my parents want me to do.”

“I care because I love you, Killua!” Gon says, the response automatic and no less true at the start of high school than it had been at twelve. And it still gets Killua to turn bright red and punch Gon in the shoulder, dispersing some of his frustration at the cost of a soon-to-be massive bruise. Gon doesn’t mind. He just wants Killua to be happy.

“You are such an embarrassment,” Killua grumbles. “What about you? You still want to go exploring?”

Gon wants to bury his head into his vidscreen. “Maybe,” he says. “I don’t really know yet.”

Killua scoffs, the puff of air making his white curls poof out of his face. “That’s a load of bullshit.”

“I don’t!” It’s not a lie. Not yet.

“Hmm.” Killua doesn’t believe him—they’ve both been too good at seeing through each other’s lies and half-truths—but he also doesn’t push. “Well. You’ll tell me when you figure it out, right?”

Gon grins and holds out his pinky finger. “Of course, Killua. I promise.”

——

#####  _x._

They don’t have homework anymore, so Killua doesn’t really have a good excuse for his parents why he’s staying the night at Gon’s. But they’ve just graduated, or at least finished all their exams, and Killua says he doesn’t give two shits if his parents want him home. He’s going to celebrate with his best friend, their friends, anyone else who wants to run along the beach and shout at the waves. The alcohol is shitty, the food is burnt, and Gon can’t remember the last time he laughed so hard.

They end up back at Aunt Mito’s house, stumbling only a little over the threshold, sober enough that they have the presence of mind to make sure their shoes are stored properly and their bags tucked into Gon’s room.

“I can sleep on the couch,” Killua says, like always, even though he never does.

“No you can’t,” Gon says, like always, because Killua sleeps better in a bed.

Which is how they end up on Gon’s bed, the moon hidden behind clouds and the stars only occasionally flickering through. They’re too big to really fit anymore, Gon’s shoulders too wide and Killua’s legs too long. The beach was good, but if Gon’s being honest, any night with Killua is good. There aren’t many of them left. It’s not possible to know exactly how many, not when it’s all up to committee and resources and things beyond any one person’s control, so the seconds slip through Gon’s fingers like fine grains of sand.

And Killua still doesn’t know. Doesn’t ask, doesn’t push, doesn’t demand to know why Gon has been so quiet lately. When he has nothing to add when Killua speaks of university, or moving to the Zoldyck outpost at Luna, or even finding an apartment for him and Alluka so he can take over company business but still have a space for himself where they won’t whisper in his ears. But the question is there, dancing between the words, and Gon doesn’t want to answer it.

He doesn’t bother to tuck himself under the covers, not when Killua will steal them anyways. “Night, Killua. I love you.”

Gon can practically hear his best friend’s eyes roll. “Idiot.”

Gon snickers. This is enough. This is more than enough.

“Wait, Gon.”

Gon has enough time to process the quiet in Killua’s voice, to turn back to meet his eyes, when he feels fingers on his cheek and lips against his own, and Gon can’t _breathe_.

Killua’s hand is still on Gon’s face when they separate, thumb tracing a circle on his chin almost unconsciously, and Gon can’t help but cover Killua’s hand with his own.

It’s a feeling like falling into a bath on a cold night, or newly cleaned blankets fresh out of the sun. It’s the same feeling Gon’s always had when Killua smiles—the rare, genuine, _actual_ smile, one that Killua doesn’t know he has and hid for years even from himself. It’s brief, and it’s intense, and it sears the inside of Gon’s veins until there’s nothing left but starlight hammering in his heart.

The kiss is a promise for a future that no longer exists, and Killua is holding his breath for a response Gon can’t give.

“I’m leaving at the end of summer,” Gon says, and Killua’s expression shatters like stars falling from the sky.

——

#####  _vi_.

The letter sits on the table, a thick envelope stacked on top of a bunch of other things—bills, mostly, but school books and a binder full of bio notes with silly scribbled animals make it into the pile. His most recent attempts at deciphering Ging’s ciphers, ones he’d found buried outside of ruined skyscrapers in ruined cities on the other side of the country. Buildings that would fit in better on the Martian domes, with their need for air and lack of space, or maybe in the more residential areas of Europa’s upside-down underwater bubbles.

Once, people lived in those, stretching to the sky instead of leaving for it. Ging had been fascinated, in his own way, at least for a little while, in these old cities, in how plants and animals had reclaimed them once humans took to the stars. But Ging had also been fascinated with pyramids, with rivers, with anywhere that someone could leave a footprint. And if Ging could get there before anyone else, all the better.

Gon’s traced his steps everywhere he can, through mountains and bustling villages and across deserts and empty cities. Sometimes, he’s made missteps, ended up somewhere new and different, somewhere Ging’s never been but maybe would have liked. And now…

 _Gon Freecss_ , the letter says in plain blocky letters. _We have not yet met. I am Dr. Cheadle Yorkshire, chairperson of the Hunter Association. May I offer you a personal congratulations on your selection to our final expedition past the boundaries of the solar system and into the galaxy at large. At sixteen, you are the youngest person to have ever been selected for this position. As part of the team, you will lead its bio- and xenoarchaeology projects, tracking..._

Maybe Ging will be proud, that Gon knocked his own achievement off by the virtue of a few weeks. Gon could ask Aunt Mito, but he’s fairly certain she’ll be angry enough about this in the first place.

And Killua…

Everything Gon’s wanted, everything he’s worked so hard for, sits in his hands. The future has never been more certain, more exciting. He should be celebrating with his family, with his friends, with his _best_ friend. But right now, it feels less like a celebration and more like a loss.

——

#####  _viii_.

“I found your acceptance letter, Gon,” Aunt Mito says over breakfast three weeks before graduation, horribly calm even as her knuckles turn white around her mug.

Gon is halfway through chewing a bite of chicken, and it sticks in his throat like caramel, impossible to swallow easily. “My letter?”

She sets down her mug without much care to the cooling liquid sloshing over the side. “Your letter. For the Hunter Association expedition. The expedition I _told you_ not to apply for.”

“I got in. Bisky—Miss Kruegar, she helped!” Gon says.

“It would mean you leaving for God knows how long. Maybe forever.”

Gon’s heard this from every single person on the expedition, from Leorio all the way up to Dr. Yorkshire. They seem to think because he’s young, he doesn’t know. But Gon’s had a long time to think about this. “Maybe! But we’ll also see worlds no one ever has before, maybe even new galaxies! And I might be able to find Ging, since we’re going where he went—”

“How do you know that?” Aunt Mito snaps.

“Because I have his notes! Wait, I’ll show them to you.” Before his mom can protest, Gon darts out of the kitchen to his room, rifling through his drawers until he finds the thick binder of papers and transcribed datapads, stuffed with sketches and crossed out ciphers he’s made over the years. He brings them back to Aunt Mito and sets them down with as much panache as he can, trying to copy Killua’s movements as best he can.

She carefully flips through the first few pages, the notes Kite had given so many years ago with nothing but a bit of luck. “Where did you find these?” she asks.

“Some around town. Some while I was traveling during the summers. Some the Association gave me when I interviewed there the first time.” Gon turns to a page he’s particularly proud of, a thick paragraph of notes with a pair of matching sketches, one of Ging’s and one of Gon’s. “Like this one! No one on the staff knew what it meant, but see, there’s a reference here to a mineral we know comes from extra-solar origins, so I thought it might connect to this cluster Ging was interested in. Which was…”

Aunt Mito lets him run through the weeks’ worth of work he’d put into the single sketch, following up on what must have been months of work Ging accomplished. When Gon’s done, she pours herself another mug of coffee, stalling momentarily in front of the liquor cabinet before deciding otherwise. “You’ve been working on this for a while, haven’t you,” she says.

He nods, hesitant. “I want to do this,” he says. “I really, really do.”

“It is your choice, after all.” She looks him over, standing next to her with his hand splayed across his binder of notes. “You’ve grown up so much, Gon. And while I don’t agree with you going on this one-way trip, I won’t stop you. I’m proud of you.”

Gon beams. “Thank you, Aunt Mito!”

The smile she gives him is soft and only a little sad. It’s all Gon can ask for, really. “And what about Killua?” she asks. “Have you told him yet?”

——

#####  _xi_.

Killua doesn’t speak to Gon for days, and Gon misses him like a hole in his side with sands of time dripping out, sometimes in spurts, sometimes in trickles. It’s Gon’s fault, he knows, for keeping his future from Killua, for choosing to leave. It’s his fault for responding to Killua’s kiss with the truth, rather than restating the same feelings he tells Killua every day he can.

He may as well get used to this feeling of loneliness and loss. It won’t be long before it’s permanent.

Of course, he never expects to get a phone call from the Zoldyck mansion. Killua always uses his own phone, separate as best he can from his family’s accounts. Maybe he threw it in the ocean? Or flushed it down the toilet? Killua’s home probably has drains big enough to handle that, even if it would trigger waste alarms.

Curiosity wins over hesitation, and Gon is assaulted with Alluka’s shouting at him about making her brother sad.

“Alluka, I’m sorry, but I’m leaving with the next expedition,” Gon says. “There’s not enough time.”

She snarls, and she sounds almost exactly like Killua. “ _I don’t care. Go fix this. You love him, right?_ ”

“I do, but—”

“ _No buts! If you don’t have_ enough _time, use what time you have. If you don’t try, I’ll be angry with you forever._ ”

Alluka doesn’t know where, exactly, Killua went—she’s not allowed out of the mansion, and Killua is very good at vanishing when he doesn’t want anyone following. But after removing the usual hangouts at school, around Aunt Mito’s house, and around the bakery, Gon’s making his way back to the same beach they’d had their graduation party on. The sun is blisteringly hot, and Gon has to squint to look against the bright sand and blinding still ocean.

Killua is tucked under the rotting pier, the whiteness of his hair sticking out against the shadows. “Why are you here,” he says, and skips a pebble out into the water. It bounces against the glassy surface, three four jumps.

Gon rubs the back of his neck. “Alluka told me to find you.”

“Figures. She’s nosy. Her and Nanika both.” He tosses another rock, watching it skip out of the shadows into the sunny water. “You can tell her I’ll be back later. Dad has another meeting planned tonight, so we can get ice cream or something once—”

“I’m sorry, Killua.”

His best friend stops mid-word, mouth snapping into a grimace. “Fuck off, Gon.”

Gon shakes his head, dropping onto the hot sand with a thump. Grains scatter around him, picked up in the breeze and nearly blowing into his eyes. “Not until I’ve said sorry.”

“You’re leaving, right? That’s enough apology.”

The words stab under Gon’s skin in burning irons, worse than getting the implants on his forehead or having Leorio fiddle with his spine. He would give everything to make Killua feel better, even if it means ripping his own heart to pieces. “If you want, I’ll go,” he says quietly. “But only if it makes you feel better.”

Killua chucks a rock the size of his fist out at the pier. It hits one of the rotten posts and clunks into the water with a noisy splash. “Of fucking course it’ll make me feel better.”

“Okay.” Gon tucks his boots under him and stands. His eyes burn from the sand, from the sun, from the tears he can’t hold back.

The look Killua gives him is closer to outright shock than anger. “What are you doing?”

He dusts his shorts off. “I’m leaving. You said it’ll make you happier. So I...We leave at the end of summer, give or take a week. You don’t have to see me again.”

“Dammit, Gon—” Killua half-launches himself out of the shadows, snagging Gon by the wrist and yanking until they both tumble into the sand.

Gon knows he’s crying, and the pressure of Killua’s fingers hot against his wrist doesn’t help. “I thought you want me gone!”

“I didn’t think you’d actually go, you stubborn asshole.”

“But you want me to leave!”

“I _do_ but I _don’t_!” Killua curls his head into his knees, arms tight around his shins. His hair poofs over everything like a dandelion. “Dammit, Gon. Why do you do this to me. I can’t think straight when you’re around.”

Not that Gon’s much better around Killua. But Killua deserves someone who’s willing to talk things through, who doesn’t ignore how his best friend actually feels and then is so careless with his heart that it falls to the floor and fractures to pieces. “What do you want, Killua?” he says.

“Gon, I know you...you love me as your friend. And it was stupid to think you loved me as anything else. But did you have to turn me down by telling me you’re _leaving_?”

“I didn’t turn you down, Killua!” He didn’t, he never wanted to. He just… doesn’t have time.

“But you’re still leaving. And you didn’t…” Killua brushes the back of his arm across his face, trying to rub away the tears. “You didn’t trust me enough to tell me. You had to wait until I kissed you.”

Gon almost wishes he had left when Killua told him to go. “I know.” He bites his lip, the pressure keeping the tears back. “But once I told you, it’d be real, and I’d really be going away. And it would hurt you. I never wanted to hurt you.”

“Good fucking job on that.”

“But when you kissed me, I didn’t know what to do. Because I’ve wanted that for a really, really long time. But I also want to find Ging. I want to know why he left, why he lied about leaving.” Gon picks up one of the stones piled up under the pier, a small flat one with lines of blue when he turns it towards the sun. It’s easier than looking at his best friend. “And by the time everything was happening, I got scared. I didn’t want you to remember me being scared and useless.”

Whatever response he’d expected from the admission, it’s not a cough of incredulous laughter and a punch to his shoulder. It’s painful, because Killua is astonishingly strong. “I’m being serious, Killua!”

“I know, but you are the _least_ useless person I’ve ever met. And definitely the most stubborn.” Killua punches him again, gently this time but in the same spot as the first. “I wish you’d just told me. This hurt way more than already knowing.”

“Would you still have kissed me?”

The hand that had been attacking Gon’s shoulder reaches down to tangle with his hand, fitting together like it’s always belonged there. “I think I might’ve kissed you a lot more,” Killua says, cheeks flushing red. “If you wanted. And didn’t turn me down.”

It’s hard not to laugh, to relish how his best friend’s face crinkles with relief. “Killua, I’ve been telling you I love you since we were twelve. Of course I want this. I have since…” Gon doesn’t remember. Since forever. Since always.

“Then let’s make the most of what we’ve got,” Killua says, thumbing across the veins in Gon’s wrist. He tries to smile, and it looks like it hurts worse than anything. Gon wants to say no. He doesn’t want to hurt Killua anymore than he already has.

He swallows, heartbeat too fast and unsteady. “But Killua—”

“You’re always asking me what I want. This is what I want,” Killua says before Gon can protest. “I want to remember my best friend, and why I love him, even though he’s an asshole sometimes.”

Gon’s leaning in before he realizes what he’s doing, and Killua’s eyes flicker down to his mouth and back. And then one sandy hand is pressed against Gon’s face. He licks it to make his best friend squirm, only succeeding in making the grainy feeling worse against his tongue. Killua says, “But first you gotta promise me you’ll tell me everything.”

That’s easy enough. Gon leans back as best he can with his mouth still covered, and links their free pinkies together. “I promise. Everything you want to know.”

——

#####  _xiii_.

“Does he know?” Aunt Mito says, dinner dishes in the sink and leftovers piled into neat lunch-sized containers, for Gon to take when he leaves tomorrow. She doesn’t have to specify who, or what he’s supposed to know. Gon should be surprised that she asks, but it's Gon's last night, and for the first time in weeks, Killua isn't at his side.

“Yeah, he knows. He can’t come.” Gon’s made sure to spend as much time as they can together, these last few weeks. But Gon’s too selfish to keep from wishing it could have been different. Especially when he’s leaving forever, chasing stardust into the sky, and Killua hasn't come to say goodbye. Maybe he can’t bring himself to.

Aunt Mito looks like she’s about to cry, and Gon can’t do anything other than pull her into a hug. He’s been taller than her for a little while, now, just enough to make hugs more awkward than they used to be. “I’m sorry, Gon. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay. I’m glad, really. It’s better for him, and Alluka will be safe.”

“And he doesn’t—”

Gon’s selfish, but he’s not cruel. He tries not to be, at least. He can’t force Killua to come with him, to love him enough to leave behind everything. And Killua deserves someone that loves him in the most real, the best possible way. Not someone like Gon, who chases horizons because of a maybe, because of a chance. Someone who can keep their promises.

“It’s okay,” he says again.

Maybe if he says it enough times, it will be. And if it’s not… well. It’s already too late.

——

#####  _ii_.

Killua, Gon learns, knows a lot about the stars. Gon knows more about the biology, the physics of it—stuff from school, but also things left in Ging’s books and Ging’s journals, scattered throughout the world like breadcrumbs for Gon to hunt down. Years ago, Kite gave him the first pages, scrawl illegible not just because it’s in a cipher but because Ging has atrocious handwriting, a trait Gon has never picked up much to his mom's and teacher's relief.

Now, Gon has enough to know where to go next. He’ll go after it soon, when he turns sixteen and is old enough that they can’t turn him down. Who _they_ are, Ging’s notes don’t say, and he doesn’t seem interested to know the particulars. But he does talk about the differences in extraterrestrial and terrestrial genetics, or the potential polymorphic geology lying beyond the solar system. Gon’s memorized enough of the words to have an idea about the science he’ll be encountering.

Killua looks at the stars and he sees people. History. Politics. The risks of the space age, expanded past the galaxy. It has to be things his parents taught him, because their teachers don’t really talk about most of this sort of thing, even though they’re finally in high school and entirely ready to know about the worlds they’re going into. He’d once given Gon a lecture about the reason nations had fought wars over the right to build satellites around Neptune, something about arrogant prime ministers and the search for impure methane and to be honest, Gon kind of turned it out after a while.

Sometimes, when they’re sitting on Aunt Mito’s roof and Gon’s too sleepy to even pretend to pay attention, Killua will point up at the satellites and the stars and point out pictures. A woman trapped upside down by a jealous god, dragons fighting across the sky. Some of them are stories for Alluka, or from her—on the increasingly rare occasion she’s allowed to join them, Killua lets her talk and talk and talk, a proud smile on his face. Gon usually tells his best friend that he loves him, because Killua needs the reminder every once in a while, and Alluka giggles with delight when Gon and Killua both tell her they love her, too.

But when they’re alone, Gon sometimes forgets to look at the stars themselves, because Killua captures them so well with his words and in his eyes, in hands grasping at the night sky like he wishes he could join them.

——

#####  _xii_.

“Come with me,” Gon says, hands entangled with Killua’s, in Killua’s hair, trying and failing to touch all of Killua just to make sure he’s real, that this isn’t just some dream he’s having on the other side of the universe with the stars in Killua’s hair and the sky in Killua’s eyes. He’s weightless, tumbling in freefall, words blurring and seconds standing still, the only semblance of time passing in the gasps and moans filling the air.

“Stay with me,” Killua says, mouth pressed to Gon’s skin, fingers tracing unfamiliar scars shaped like wires and turbine burns, nails digging in painfully when he finds a new one, grounding them both to each other because gravity doesn’t feel like it’s working anymore. He’s trembling, worse than Gon is, and they’re breathless and exhausted and deliriously happy for a moment. Just a moment.

Neither of them say _I can’t_.

Both of them know that’s the only answer they have to give.

So Gon says, “I love you,” and wishes it were enough that Killua whispers it back.

——

#####  _iv._

They never have enough time.

Gon doesn’t know this when he’s twelve, when he meets Killua for the first time at a zero-grav climbing competition Gon shouldn’t be in and Killua refuses to back out of. He doesn’t know at fourteen, either, the first time Killua stays over without telling his parents, sleeping in Gon’s bed and sharing Gon’s warmth and Gon sleeps better than he ever has before. He still doesn’t know when he turns sixteen and comes back from a summer bouncing between ancient cities and committee interviews and board rooms and unmarked crash sites, running after the vanishing footprints Ging left behind. Not until he’s sunstruck by the sight of his best friend with hair that isn’t just white but _gleams_ in the brilliant autumn afternoon, and Killua socks him in the face.

Maybe that helps him realize, a little, halfway through Killua’s berating that Gon should have _called_ or at least _told_ his _best friend_ he was running off to bumblefuck nowhere to search for a spaceship that probably doesn’t exist, missing not just his own birthday but Killua’s. Gon didn’t mean to, really, and he didn’t want to, but all his apologies and excuses die on his lips when he is distracted by how blue Killua’s eyes are, by the angle of his jaw, by the unbroken bridge of his nose edged with sunburnt skin.

“I love you, Killua,” he hears himself say, and for the first time Gon doesn’t know what the words mean, other than _more_. He’s always loved Killua. And he still does. But this is so new, sudden and scary beyond belief.

What do those words even mean anymore, when saying them makes everything funnel down into nothing but _Killua Killua Killua_?

Killua simply splutters like normal, unaware of how Gon’s blood pounds in his veins and in his eyes and in his heart, on the verge of choking off all his breath at the realization of what those words mean. “You’re not getting out of this one, you asshole! You owe me _everything_.”

 _Anything for you_ , Gon’s heart says.

His lips say, “I can only afford so much chocolate. I’m kind of broke now.”

Killua considers this thoughtfully, eyes slanted and dangerous. “I guess that’s a start, because you owe me all of it.”

Time, Gon thinks he has. He has time to give Killua everything he’s owed and more. He has time to realize what love means, why his heart is molten and gold when Killua smiles. He has time enough to give it all to Killua, who deserves so much more than Gon can ever give.

There’s time enough to wait and see if Killua will ever love Gon as much as Gon loves Killua. If Gon will ever be worthy of it.

But there’s not. There never was in the first place. Gon never had enough time. But if asked, he’d never wish to spend it any other way.

——

#####  _xiv_.

There’s a message on his HUD as Gon finishes locking into his seat, prepared to launch. He’s surprised at how calm he feels, even with his blood thumping in his veins, scared but excited and so ready to _go._

The message isn’t signed, not that it needs to be. And there are plenty of questions about how it got through, or what systems were hacked, if there’s any chance that this might leave them connected for a little longer than they’re supposed to be. But Gon doesn’t care, reading the few lines over and over again until the words are burnt into his memory.

 _I'm not saying goodbye. One day, I’m coming after you_. _So don’t do anything stupid._

_I love you._

Gon discovers, much to his frustration, that crying in a helmet is really, really gross, no matter if it’s happy or sad or somewhere in between.

——

#####  _vii_.

“Why do you tell me you love me all the time?” Killua bursts out, embarrassed past the point of being embarrassed. Gon's just turned seventeen, and the world is both too big and too small, an impossible expanse beyond a horizon and completely funneled into this room, this bed. Gon’s envelope sits on his night table, opened but unanswered. He still hasn’t responded, even though he knows he has to soon.

He keeps meaning to. But that makes it permanent, and he doesn’t know how to tell Killua. Maybe that’s why Ging vanished without telling Gon goodbye, because he didn’t know how to shape the words so they fit. It’s an odd sort of familiarity to have with the person supposed to be his dad, understanding his thoughts without him ever being there. Or maybe Gon’s just making things up.

Gon smiles and ignores the way his chest tightens, making it hard to breathe. “Because I do, Killua!” he says, as honest and sincere as he can be. It makes Killua turn redder than apples, makes him stare purposefully anywhere else, but Gon’s glad he’s said it.

Gon loves his best friend. Loves him even though it’s selfish, even though it’s going to end. And Gon, for what little time they have left together, can live with that.

“What about you?”

Killua still doesn’t look at him, and a small part of Gon shreds itself to pieces. “What _about_ me?”

Gon snags one of Killua’s hands, strength tangible in its sinews and tendons. Gon could hold Killua’s hand all day, tracing the lines and lean muscles down to pointed nails that are more dangerous than they should be. It tightens as if by reflex over his own, pale skin luminescent against brown. “Do you love me, Killua?”

Once, Gon found it hilarious that Killua blushes so brightly he might as well be a lamp. He still does now, a sunlamp against Gon’s skin that’s no longer simply funny but life-giving. But Gon’s surprised when Killua responds, quiet but steady. “You should already know I do.”

Gon smiles, relieved. He can’t have Killua, but at least he can have this moment. That’s all Gon’s ever wanted, really. Little flakes of time, captured and enshrined in his memory like bugs in amber, almost solid enough to turn over in his hands.

So he tangles his arms around Killua’s torso and buries his nose in white curls that might as well be starlight, relishing the contented sigh his best friend lets out. It doesn’t take long before Killua’s falling asleep, relaxed and careless in Gon’s bed and in Gon’s arms.

“I love you,” Gon whispers. And for a moment Gon lets himself be selfish, because he pretends he can hear Killua say that back.

**Author's Note:**

> this was originally a 1000 word hsau/hanahaki ficlet I was working on while editing my big bang. it went off the rails and into the sky. I listened to ["Under Stars" from AURORA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AWHALoCzPM) almost nonstop while doing a fair chunk of this fic.
> 
> [tumblr!](https://xyliane.tumblr.com/)


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